This was a perfect conclusion to the Wedgeford Trials series and evidenced how intentionally and carefully Milan built the plot arcs across all three books. In the opening chapters, subtle moments and seemingly innocuous side characters from previous books become pivotal to the plot set-up, revealing the mysterious (and now urgent) backstory that was hiding in plain sight all along. 

Andrew and Lily are perfectly paired childhood best friends and once-lovers. Andrew uses humor as distraction, giving the security and safety he's always craved to everyone in his orbit. He is also a passionate farmer devoted to growing heirloom vegetables native to the countries his neighbors have had to leave behind. Lily, a bold political radical, aspiring suffragist, translator and printer of sensational poetry, struggles to decode innuendo or conversational courtesy, complicating her understanding of how others perceive her. Andrew and Lily were each other's safe haven for years, until a pivotal moment in her teens when her grandfather sent her off to her grandmothers in Hong Kong. They're reunited seven years later in a disastrous first encounter where Lily unknowingly threatens to unravel Andrew's carefully constructed fiction, innocuously rerouting his life. 

Milan frequently explores hidden identity and does so with such care and attention to the power imbalance in miscommunication and deception. The pacing of Andrew and Lily's conflict is so well done, and the heart-wringing interpersonal angst we feel in their early encounters appropriately explodes into honesty at exactly the right time. For Milan readers, this hit some of the emotional notes that I loved in Once Upon a Marquess, including reunited childhood friends who had always longed for more, a forest of mutual pining, it-was-always-you, and disastrous aristocratic families. The plot set-up, though, feels reminiscent of The Suffragette Scandal, a radical printer and suffragette and a secret-aristo. Here, though, Milan is exploring universal suffragism outside a white gaze, and it is so powerfully done. 

With a beautiful sub-plot that explores the cultivation and cultural significance of various tea leaves, a hilarious side-quest into Callum's Holy Order of Logbooks (justice for Kenneth!), a COOL exploration of radical feminist literature, several on-page discussions of birth control and abortion care, and a brilliantly executed deception that once-again plays to the ignorance of empire, this is a new favorite Milan for me.